I have been very fortunate in my life to have had the opportunity to attend a lot of opera as both an aficionado and for work purposes. I could go on and on with my list, and include such things as world premiers, opening nights at San Francisco Opera, listening to the London recording of the wonderful Die Fledermaus gala insert (includes that “Viennese” schmaltz “I Could have Danced All Night” by Birgit Nilsson, Miss Valkyrie herself), going standing room at the Met with my friends Melinda and Carol, San Francisco Opera anytime, etc. etc. But even with the unlimited amount of space on the Internet, I decided to keep it down to just the creme de la creme of my most memorable opera moments. In no particular order:

“Madama Butterfly” at New York City Opera. At the time I didn’t know it was memorable. Years later I found out why. For those who aren’t familiar with the opera, the role of B.F. Pinkerton is not known for attracting big name singers. In the mid-’60s, my mother had decided it was time to educate the family and took us to three City operas, including “La Boheme,” “Carmen” and “Butterfly.” Needless to say, I remember little about the production but I do remember my mother calling my aunt, a singer herself, on the phone when we got home to rave about the Pinkerton. Years later, she recalled the story. The unknown tenor? Someone namedPlacido Domingo.

War and Peace, San Francisco Opera. Rarely performed but this exquisite production conducted by Valery Gergiev lived up to its glorious hype in 1991. But what I remember most is watching the soldiers march down Franklin Street in the middle of the night rehearsing. What a sight!

Baz Luhrmann’s La Boheme at the Curran Theatre: All right, all right. Stop your cackling. But I went to the 2002 opening night in San Francisco sitting a row behind Nicole Kidman and I have to admit the spectacle of the Act 2 Street Scene was remarkable.

Lady Macbeth of Mtensk at San Francisco Opera and the Metropolitan Opera House. I saw two totally and two wonderful productions. The first was at SFO and on a scale of 1-10 I give the death scene of getting thrown into the Volga a 10. The turn of the century sets made the adultery so much seedier. At the Met, Graham Vick set the opera in Stalinist Russia. And in each production, it was so worth waiting for that trombone slide during the, well… go find a production to find out.

Elektra at the Vienna Opera House. 1991. Our seats of this magnificent edifice overlooked the orchestra. The musicians would come out in casual attire, eating their dinner in the pit, then pick up their instrument and play the most heavenly music I’ve ever heard. Oh yes, the singing was great, led by the great Hildegard Behrens, but I did look (without success) for just a symphonic version of Richard Strauss’ music.

Der Rosenkavalier at the Met. This 1969 production featured some of the greats — Christa Ludwig, Reri Grist, Leonie Rysanek. My dad hated this opera, it’s my mom’s favorite. I was dragged to the Met and sat with my grandma and aunt in the last row of the balcony on the right side and my parents were in the last row on the left side. In Act 1, there’s a scene in a salon where at one point some dogs are taken to the stage. And yes, indeed, they started doing the dirty. My dad appeared to be the first to hear it and as he laughed, the domino effect happened as the chortles made their way into the orchestra. Years later, I interviewed Grist and told her about the incident. She said “I remember that!” She was backstage and heard all the laughter and saw people hiding their chuckles as Rudolf Bing, the director at the Met at the time, was screaming to get those dogs off the stage. My mother went back a few years later and called me up on the phone: “One dog.” Enough said.

Simon Boccanegra at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. I saw a poster that this opera was showing in London and went to the ticket office for the Saturday night show. A nice man said come Saturday morning. So I show up to a mob full of people and was about to leave when he gave me a look from across the room that said, “stay.” So when I got up to the ticket window and asked if he had any tickets, he handed me the singlet. It was in the last row of the house but the people I sat with were true opera aficionados and I had a blast. Plus, the opera wasn’t too shabby. The Simon was Alexandru Agache and the female lead was the magnificent Kiri te Kanawa.

Eugene Onegin:This IS my favorite opera. And even a weak production holds memories for me. A not so elegant production was at the San Francisco Opera in 2004. It happened to be on my 50th birthday and there could be nothing better than hearing that music on such a momentous day. By the way, one of the most exquisite productions I ever saw also was at the San Francisco Opera in 1986 with Mirella Freni (her letter always brings me to tears) and Thomas Allen as Onegin. I’ve seen the Met perform it twice: once in Detroit in 1980 with Michael Devlin, Nicolai Gedda and Teresa Kubiak and in 2007 with Renee Fleming and Dmitri Hvorostovsky and conducted by Gergiev. I still have mixed feelings about that production although Hvorostovsky was just fantastic and as the New York Times wrote at the time “ was born to play the role.” So Im now posting this blog after seeing the latest Met incarnataion with Anna Netrebeko‘s explosive performance that brought the always picky New York crowd to their feet at the finale with a thunderous standing ovation. Call it instant classic.